Every time a new aircraft design is spread around on the internet, it's usually an extreme change from the standard aircraft shapes that we know today. For example, the flying wing design is always suggested.

As someone aspiring to be an airline pilot, these designs are somewhat frightening. Personally, I want to fly the same aircraft that are flying today. Anyone else feel this way? I understand that many things change over time, and perhaps pilots who flew decades ago would find an aircraft such as the 787 or A350 to be unattractive for some reason. But I think I'd rather be flying a 757 than something the Jetsons would own once I enter a major airline.

Quoting alexheule (Thread starter):Anyone else feel this way? I understand that many things change over time, and perhaps pilots who flew decades ago would find an aircraft such as the 787 or A350 to be unattractive for some reason. But I think I'd rather be flying a 757 than something the Jetsons would own once I enter a major airline.

We all have attachments to things we grew up with or things we have now. I still like playing regular Nintendo more than PS2. I drive a manual transmission car and hope to continue driving manual transmissions for much of my life.

But I understand that neither of those is likely to happen.

I really don't understand why you'd oppose future aircraft designs. Future designs will only enter service if they're cheaper or more efficient in some way. And that bodes well for those working for an airline, including pilots (airline makes money = pilots keep jobs). So my thought would be that you probably shouldn't resist that sort of thing!

I'm watching Jeopardy. The category is worst Madonna songs. "This one from 1987 is terrible".

Maybe. But hopefully not the people who actually buy planes, lest airlines lose more money than they already do.

Of course there are websites like this for people to reminisce and museums and dedicated groups of people preserving aircraft. If you really want to fly older aircraft, or continue flying what's around today, I suggest you try to get involved there.

Quoting web500sjc (Reply 2):except no one builds a concept airliner just for the h*ll of it!

The government does. Not as much now as they used to it seems, but it still happens.

Quoting alexheule (Thread starter):As someone aspiring to be an airline pilot, these designs are somewhat frightening. Personally, I want to fly the same aircraft that are flying today. Anyone else feel this way?

When I was a child I felt that same way about cars...I kept seeing artist interpretations of what future cars would look like and thinking to myself that I wanted to drive a 'normal' car. Fast forward a few years (actually, decades) and things haven't changed that much. Actually, they have, but changes happen so slowly you don't even notice. As an example, the Honda Insight - that was pretty much what the 'car of the future' pics showed 30 yrs ago, and it really doen't look that much different to most other cars out there now.

Planes will look different in the future, but only slightly and you'll soon get used to them. If you really want to fly an 'old school' plane, go fly in Russia!

Seems like a rather odd position. Did you post on this thread from your typewriter or are you still managing to use a quill pen? And have you actually seen a car from the 80's recently? Kinda boxy, aren't they? Heck... go back to the 50s and 60s. Are you saying that it would be better for all of us to be driving those? Bringing it back to your topic... are you suggesting that we should all be on DC-8s? DC-3s? Or perhaps riding in the front seat of bi-planes? Where do you draw the line in the continuum other than to say "I want MY plane that I like?"

Most of the changes in those things didn't happen all at once. They were tiny incremental changes in one thing at a time that, when you look back over a long period, look like huge shifts. If you were to ask someone about any one of those tiny changes, however, they would say, "Oh... yeah, that seems like a good idea. Not that big of a deal, but certainly in improvement."

I suspect that if you were involved in the decision making process on aircraft engineering, you would look at those tiny incremental changes and say "sure... go ahead and improve that one thing." Eventually, you would have a completely different plane.

In reality as an actual aircraft design engineer, the radical changes you see are not likely to be incorporated into commercial airplanes. There's a reason why airplanes have more or less looked the same since the 707 (except Concorde). The reason is that it simply is the most efficient design. MIT labs or other great scientists can come up with crazy concepts that look great on paper, but they are almost impossible to execute.

However, from my bubble of just personal opinions and not based on any actual designs being proposed, I do see that some visually radical changes could happen. One example is canards. Putting the horizontal stabilizer on the front of the airplane is aerodynamically more efficient (lift forces of elevators and wing go in same direction). It hasn't been implemented because it is an inherently unstable design, but it would not shock me one day to see canards come out since with the latest control system technology evolutions, airplanes are becoming less inherently stable aerodynamically and are covering it with active software.

However I do not see these radical twin hull or blended wing bodies coming out. Airplanes look the way they do because that is one of the best ways to do it. Anytime anyone actually does a real trade study on the radical designs, they get thrown out. I think going fully double deck as on the A380 was about as radical of the level of change you will see in your lifetime.

I'm not trying to be unimaginative, but I do understand the logistics behind aircraft design. There are a lot of constraints to consider. And believe it or not, airplanes are actually very low tech in how they work. Believe it or not, there are parts on the 777 at the detail level that have been around since the 727. Yes that is true. There aren't many, but there are some.

If you have never designed an airplane part before, let the real designers do the work!

Quoting alexheule (Thread starter):
Every time a new aircraft design is spread around on the internet, it's usually an extreme change from the standard aircraft shapes that we know today. For example, the flying wing design is always suggested.

The flying wing is more than 60 years old...it predates most of what we think of as "the standard" jet aircraft configuration.

Quoting alexheule (Thread starter):As someone aspiring to be an airline pilot, these designs are somewhat frightening. Personally, I want to fly the same aircraft that are flying today

Why, in particular, the designs of today? The designs we have today look nothing like the very first aircraft. If we run this logic all the way back, we should be flying canard biplanes (Wright Flyer).

Quoting RoseFlyer (Reply 9):One example is canards. Putting the horizontal stabilizer on the front of the airplane is aerodynamically more efficient (lift forces of elevators and wing go in same direction). It hasn't been implemented because it is an inherently unstable design

It's not inherently unstable...things like the Long-EZ (or anything else from Rutan) or the retrofit Cessna 182s are perfectly stable with completely conventional flight controls. There are some good reasons not to use a canard on an airliner, but stability isn't one of them.

Quoting RoseFlyer (Reply 9):Believe it or not, there are parts on the 777 at the detail level that have been around since the 727. Yes that is true. There aren't many, but there are some.

There are only so many ways to build a shim, shear tie, bulb seal, etc.

I recall airline pilots retiring rather than switching to jets when the 707 came along... there was a problem with the Boeing Model 80 in 1928 where the pilots insisted on an open cockpit... so a B model was produced it was converted to an enclosed cockpit after a few flights...then in 1930 the Monomail brought back the open cockpit. It took the Army Air even longer to see the value with open cockpit fighters being produced up to about 1940...

so while change is ever upon us, acceptance sometimes is slow. so would you consider Rutan's aircraft as too out there?

I really don't think these radical departure designs will be implemented as ground infrastructure would also have to be updated at such a large scale...the industry is not healthy enough to support such changes.